Shake, Rattle & Roll With It: Living & Laughing with Parkinson’s

by Vikki Claflin

Erma Bombeck meets Michael J. Fox in "Shake, Rattle & Roll With It: Living and Laughing with Parkinson's." Vikki Claflin is a writer, humorist, and professional public speaker. After many dark days spent coming to terms with her diagnosis, Vikki's natural comic optimism and irreverence began to surface, and she started writing about the funny side of living with Parkinson's disease. "Shake, Rattle & Roll With It" s a collection of Vikki's honest - and hilarious - essays about the ups and downs of life with a chronic illness. She shows us how to laugh at ourselves by first laughing at her, as she unabashedly shares with us her most embarrassing moments in her battle with Parkinson's. Chapter titles include: "Hey Doc, Call Me When They Find a Cure, Okay?" "Thank You for Calling Google.doc. Yep, You're Gonna Die." "Date Night. This isn't How I Remember It." "I Gave Hubs a Pole Dance and He Can't Stop Laughing. It's Been Two Days." "The 20 Best Things About Having Parkinson's." A true gift to anyone living with, or caring for someone who lives with a chronic condition, or who just loves a good belly laugh, "Shake, Rattle & Roll With It" is pure joy, and should be on everyone's MUST READ list.

218 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 28, 2014

About the author

Vikki is an international best-selling author, humor blogger, and inspirational public speaker. She lives in Hood River, OR, where she writes the award-winning humor blog "Laugh Lines: Humorous thoughts and advice on how to live young when you're...well...not," where she doles out irreverent advice on marriage, offers humorous how-to lists galore, and shares her most embarrassing midlife moments. Vikki has been featured on the Michael J. Fox Foundation website, Erma Bombeck's Writer's Workshop, The Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Generation Fabulous, Midlife Boulevard, Better After 50, and Funny Times Magazine. She also received a BlogHer14 "Voices of the Year" Humor award, and has been a featured guest on over 40 radio programs throughout the US and Canada. Vikki's first book, "Shake, Rattle & Roll With It: Living & Laughing with Parkinson's" and "Who Left the Cork Out of My Lunch? Middle Age, Modern Marriage & Other Complications" are available now on amazon.com. Her new book "Chin Hairs & Back Fat. Somewhere Between Tweezers, Yoga Pants, and a Box of Wine" will be released in February 2017.

Reviews

[Sue Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this lady's spunk. She has Parkinson's disease but has decided not to let it ruin her life. In this book she tells what it has been like since she was diagnosed five years ago. You can't help laughing, but neither can she. One very different thing in the book that you don't find in other books of this sort is a little section where she relates a list that her husband made of the things that have changed in his life since "we" got Parkinson's. She has a blog which I can't wait to read.
I recommend this book for anyone liking memoirs and humor.

I received this book free from Goodreads First Reads.

[Ruth Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A humorous take on what it is to be a woman with Parkinson's Disease. An honest but hopeful insight to navigating somewhat shaky and stormy seas....

[Sharon Krischer]

Shake, Rattle & Roll With It: Living and Laughing with Parkinson's by Vikki Claflin, who has been writing about her experiences with Parkinson's in her blog, Laugh Lines, gives us a very different take on PD. There is a saying that if you write a blog about Parkinson's, you will eventually write a book about it. I have read some books by bloggers that are just awful. But this one I recommend highly. At times, I think she had channeled me and was writing about my experiences. She sees the same elephant in the room that I have seen and written about. I found myself nodding in agreement with her observations and laughing hysterically at some of her antics. There is no embarrassing PD story that is off limits. Any woman can relate to her description of shimmying into Spanx whether she has PD or not. (If you don't know what Spanx are, imagine trying to stuff a comforter back into that plastic bag it came in. You just can't do it!) Her 20 ways Parkinson's tremors come in handy is a classic. And of course, when all else fails, there is always a glass (or bottle) of red wine with Milk Duds to get through the worst days. But underneath it all is a serious look at living with a chronic disease and how one woman copes with it by looking at the world through humor. Her final advice to us is "Even without a cure in your lifetime, you can fight a good fight." If you can laugh at the frustrations, epic fails and embarrassing moments, you will live a life made up of joyful moments and you have won the fight.

[KennyO · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humor from the Erma Bombeck school which is wonderful or awful, according to your 'druthers. Parkinson's Disease (PD) is not the core of the book, though, just as it's not the center of the universe for those who live with it. I admire her way of dealing with PD because her lighthearted descriptions of life with it resemble the experience of my friend of many years who also lives with PD and has done since the 1980s. Having PD is a unique experience for everyone who's got it and not simply because of how they handle themselves. I gather that this is substantially a number of excerpts from Claflin's Laugh Lines blog.

[Kimberly Dalferes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vikki Claflin will have you smiling from page one of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll With It." I've seen Parkinson's up close and personal. I assure you this writer uses a deft hand to describe the daily struggles with this disease - but never as a pity party! This book is for everyone who believes in the power of humor and the human spirit.